


side step and duck

by Anonymous



Category: Cobra Kai (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Daniel Trained Miguel, Gen, Originally Posted on Tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-24
Updated: 2020-09-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:41:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26624608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Only Aisha and Eli wore gi. Miguel, barefoot, in a loose, easy-to-move-around shirt and shorts, stood at the back of the class, silently listening to the bellowed speech about pansies and weaklings. He doubted the kids who left were actually weak. They’d probably decided that whatever methods Cobra Kai used, it wasn’t worth it.“New kid!” Lawrence bellowed, and Miguel lifted his head to look at him. “What you doing here?”
Relationships: Miguel Diaz & Robby Keene, No Romantic Relationship(s)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 30
Collections: Fanfic Anonymous





	side step and duck

Only Aisha and Eli wore gi. Miguel, barefoot, in a loose, easy-to-move-around shirt and shorts, stood at the back of the class, silently listening to the bellowed speech about pansies and weaklings. He doubted the kids who left were actually weak. They’d probably decided that whatever methods Cobra Kai used, it wasn’t worth it.

“New kid!” Lawrence bellowed, and Miguel lifted his head to look at him. “What you doing here?”

Standing? Listening to your yelling? Existing, while being very bored? Miguel didn’t think most of those were good answers, so he picked the lesser of all evils and went with it.

“Listening, sir.”

“I can’t hear you!”

“Listening, sir,” Miguel repeated, in the same tone, and Lawrence paced towards him, the other kids moving out of the way, leaving just him and Lawrence in the middle of the room. Miguel didn’t waver.

“Fighting stance.”

Miguel obeyed, spreading his feet and lifting his hands, inhaling and exhaling, feeling his heartbeat, and listening to Lawrence’s breathing and feet on the mat. He didn’t flinch when the fist flew towards him, didn’t move. The stance was wrong. It was a fake-out.

“See this kid?” Lawrence yelled, pointing harshly to Miguel, who inhaled and held it, exhaling slowly. “He didn’t flinch! Aisha!”

“Yes, sensei!”

“Stand here. Same method as yesterday.”

Aisha took up a fighting stance, right across from Miguel, who inhaled, and exhaled, eyes on her. He listened, watched, and waited.

She moved, fist flying for his face, but it wasn’t a copout. It was an actual attack. Miguel reacted, palm connecting with her wrist and guiding it away. She narrowed her eyes, shoulders tightening, and threw another punch, and Miguel did the same thing.

“So the kid knows some things,” Lawrence called, but he didn’t sound so certain anymore. He sounded slightly concerned. “Aisha. New Kid. Fight.”

Aisha let out a yell and kicked. Miguel dodged out of the way, going on the defensive, avoiding her kicks and punches, deflecting the blows that he needed to, slipping around the room. The other students were yelling, cheering Aisha on. She was strong, no doubt, but he was quicker and had been training longer. He kept dodging, relying on a philosophy he didn’t know the source of. But if you had a stack of rocks, all balanced perfectly, a little pebble thrown at one, hitting the right place, could make them all crash down.

He ducked a wide punch, twisted in a crouch, doing a three-sixty, and came up, knee pulled in close, body almost parallel to the ground, arms close. It was a hard position to hold, to get into. Even harder to pull off a kick without causing yourself to land on your face or lose your balance.

Miguel’s favourite activity at the lake was balancing on the tree.

His foot collided with her ribcage, sharp and fast and hard, enough force held in it to send her falling to the ground, but not enough force to injure beyond a bruise. Matching strength was more of a taekwondo concept than it was a karate one, but it was one that Miguel was good at.

He landed on both feet, perfectly balanced, and breathing heavily, adrenaline slowly fading out. Aisha pushed herself up, glaring at him, and threw herself back into the fight, angry.

The match wasn’t called. So Miguel backed up again, batting her hands away, and ducked under her kick, spinning low and sweeping her grounding foot out. She hit the ground again. Miguel listened to the other students, who were a lot quieter. Some whispers, but nothing else. Aisha pushed herself up, and paused, considering him. Miguel let her, rocking his weight back and forth from foot to foot. He felt good.

It wasn't like sparring with Robby, which almost always ended with him on the ground, or with sensei, where he never lost, but he never won either. It wasn’t like that one time he’d fought Miss Luzki’s niece, Allison, who was taekwondo, just like her aunt, when their styles had clashed so painfully they’d ended up headbutting each other.

It was almost like he could sense where she was coming from. Where the next kick would land.

Her eyes flickered, and Miguel’s ears, which had memorized the particular sound of an incoming attack from behind thanks to the circle, warned him.

He dove to the side. A proper dive, parkour-style, like what Robby had taught him, hands impacting first, body streamlined and feet together, head tucking and spinning out over his shoulder, knees tucking close and toes touching down, momentum bringing him up into a crouch.

Eli had attacked him from behind. And he’d avoided it. It wasn’t karate or taekwondo, if anything, it was tricking. But it had worked. He had avoided the kick.

He stood up, hands ready to defend himself, and moved.

Eli was faster than Aisha. There wasn’t so much power behind each hit, and his technique was the same as hers. Refined enough to be passable in a school, on the street, or in a newly-opened dojo like Cobra Kai. Refined enough for a tournament.

Miguel kept his eyes on Hawk and his ears on Aisha. She was louder.

They ended up tripping each other, Miguel having slid out of the way, baseball-style, and he rose into a standing crouch, facing Lawrence, who looked pissed. But he also saw, behind Lawrence, standing at the door. Robby.

“Are we done?” He panted, his heart slowing down at last. “Or do you want everyone to attack me.”

“As interesting as that’d be,” Robby said before anyone could speak up to really endorse the idea, “I don’t think you want a broken arm.”

Lawrence turned around, to Robby leaning against the wall, arms crossed. He focused on Miguel, not on his father.

“C’mon, Miguel,” he said, straightening up after a moment of silence. “If you wanted a challenge, you should have said so. Let’s go.”

Miguel, relieved that he didn’t have to participate anymore, hurried after Robby, grabbing his backpack and shoes on the way past, not bothering to pull them on before he left the dojo, turning to bow briefly before he left for real.

“Eli dragged me in,” Miguel said, the moment the car doors were shut. “Insisted I had to come, I didn’t have an answer for it.”

“I don’t care why you were there,” Robby said, glaring through the window shield of the pickup at the Cobra Kai doors. “I don’t mind. But what was that fight?”

“I don’t know,” Miguel said, realizing his face is stinging. He flips down the little thing above and before him and stares in the mirror. He was going to bruise, he knew. Eli landed a hit sometime, or maybe it was Aisha. He didn’t remember the details of the fight, having zoned out as it happened. A white spot, it’s called. But his bare feet stung, and so did his wrists, from blocking and striking. It’ll fade soon enough, but it stung and felt stretched and wrong. “I think I made him mad.”

Robby pulled out of the strip mall. He was quiet as they drove away, only speaking once they were a few minutes out. “Do you want to join Cobra Kai?”

“No!” Miguel exclaimed, horrified at the idea of it. “I like you and sensei LaRusso! Cobra Kai’s loud and mean and I don’t like that. I like you guys.”

“Good,” Robby said, and Miguel knew he meant it. “We like you too.”


End file.
